Somewhere while I was growing up I
became a "survivalist". The idea of having food, clothes, gear and other things
on hand in case things went wrong makes sense to me. Maybe it was my time as a
Wolf Cub or my time as a Wolf Cub and Scout leader, maybe it is because I have
always been a history buff, maybe it was the role playing games like Dungeons &
Dragons I played, maybe it was a combination of these and my innate personality.
Who knows? I sure don't. All I know is that it makes sense to have those
supplies.

To me,
survivalism is not like Mel Gibson in Mad Max or the Road Warrior or any number
of Hollywood versions of what happens after the crap hits the fan. Survivlism
can best be illustrated by those few people in New Orleans in 2005 who made it
through hurricane Katrina with little difficulty. By having a supply of food,
water and a means to cook they were able to stay in their homes until government
agencies could get their act together and start bringing in relief supplies.

When you get right down to it,
survivalism is what our parents, grandparents and great grandparents practiced
on a daily basis. They always had food in the cupboards just in case something
went wrong. If they lived in a rural area they had gardens, canned, had root
cellars and lots of firewood. They knew that you need to have food in case you
can't get to the store. They knew you had to have light and heat in case the
power went out.

At the core of survivalism is the
desire to be prepared for whatever man or nature throws your way. It could be
weather related, I lived 60 miles away from Buffalo, NY during the blizzard of
78 and as a kid thought that a week of being completely snowed in and then
another without school during my favorite season of the year was great. It could
be "man made" such as a chemical spill. It could be having no power
for two weeks for whatever reason. It could be a disruption in the distribution
system used in today's "just in time" delivery method for store stocking - when
was the last time you went to the grocery store late Sunday and found that many
items were out of stock - what if no trucks could get through for a week or more? There are any number of events that can
throw a monkey wrench into your day-to-day routine that could affect your very
survival.

Part of survival includes knowing
what emergencies or disasters you are may experience. Do you live near a busy
highway that hazardous material trucks use? Rail road tracks? Is there a
chemical plant near by? What about a nuclear reactor (power company or
university)? What about forest fires? Floods? Tornadoes? Hurricanes? Winter
blizzard? If you live in a city you may have to deal with civil unrest and
rioting. Some people have moved from the city to the suburbs, some have moved to
a more rural location. Others prefer to have a cabin or some other sort of
retreat to go to in case the crap hits the fan. Some plan on going to a friend
or relative's. Every person's situation is different and requires different
plans and gear. You must assess your situation, your means and make some plans.
Regardless of your particular situation there are a few constants in every
emergency, disaster or survival situation.

Riding out the emergency or "Bugging In"
There are any number of simple things the average person can do
to make their chances of surviving such an event as easy and assured as
possible. Simple things like having at least two to four weeks of food on hand.
The more food you have the better. This food should be easy to prepare and
require no refrigeration. Canned, dried, "heat and eat" foods (MREs, boil
in the bag, etc) are great for this and do not require a lot of room. Water, at
3 gallons a day per person just for food will take up more room, but between
water on hand and some way to purify the water you should be able to survive on
two to three days of stored water. I'd also increase the amount you store per
day to 5 gallons per person per day, water jugs usually come in 5 gallon sizes.
If you are going to pack freeze dried food that needs to be rehydrated you will
need to stock more water, which is another reason to round up to 5 gallons per
person per day.

Water can be stored as store
bought bottled water or in bottles or drums that you fill yourself and treat
with a few drops of regular chlorine bleach, or a combination of the two. Water
purification should also be considered as in most cases when municipal water is
once again available it comes with a boil and/or treat advisory. A gravity filer
such as a Berkey or Katadyn makes this process much easier. Water purifiers also
allow you to use water from just about any source you may find... stream, pond,
lake, etc. Smaller gravity filters can be taken with you in the event you have
to evacuate your home.

There are a number of other
things you can do to make life at home easier in an emergency situation. If you
have a fireplace make sure you have wood to provide heat, you may also want to
consider a stove insert that will allow you to cook food on the top in pots and
pans. You way want to consider a basic wood burning stove such as a pot bellied
stove for the kitchen for heat and cooking. Candles, candle lanterns, oil lamps,
battery lanterns, camping lanterns and solar rechargeable deck lanterns can all
be used around the house to provide light. Camping stoves can be used to cook on
as can gas or charcoal grills. Charcoal fire pits can be used inside to provide
heat (and to cook on), similar items were used in the past and are called
braziers. Propane or kerosene heaters can also be used to heat your house.

I like charcoal. I have three
charcoal grills, your standard Weber kettle grill, a small Hibatchi, and a large
Brinkman (will also burn wood) that has two cooking areas and can fit 72 beer
brats on both sides. The Brinkman will stay hot for about 4 hours with ten
pounds of charcoal. Charcoal is fairly cheap, I pay about $11 for two 40 pound
bags of Kingsford at Sam's Club, and with a charcoal fire pit or improvised
brazier I can use it to heat the inside of the house if worst comes to worst.

Keep in mind that anything that
burns indoors presents a fire and carbon monoxide hazard, get a couple of
battery operated carbon monoxide monitors and keep them with your emergency
supplies.
Make sure you open a couple of windows an inch or two to allow ventilation.
These should be in addition to any carbon monoxide detectors already in your
home, make sure you have extra batteries.

If you have a lot of frozen and
refrigerated food or have medical equipment that requires electricity you will
want to think about a gasoline, propane/natural gas or diesel powered generator.
Gasoline powered generators are by far the most common, but gasoline should not
be stored for too long. Propane powered generators are usually found as whole
house
backup generators due to the clean burning propane/natural gas and the long term
storage capabilities of propane/natural gas, but can be found in portable models
as well. Diesel generators are less common but they are more durable than their
gasoline counterparts, diesel also has storage issues but can be stored longer
than gasoline (not to mention bio-diesel). In some cases you can find dual or
triple fuel generators that run on a combination of liquid and LP (low
pressure - propane/natural) gas. With generators in every size from small 1
kilowatt Hondas and up, there is a generator to meet every need and budget.

Without water service or
electricity (to pump the water) you will not have the ability to flush your
toilet. A portable toilet of some sort will come in very handy. This can be a
basic five gallon pail with toilet seat attached and garbage bags to a sawdust
toilet or ready made portable toilets.

That about covers the various things an average person can do to make staying at
home during and after an emergency that disrupts normal services. It goes
without saying that you should have the basic tools most home owners do, a
shovel, axe, saw, hammers, etc to make any basic repairs that are needed, such
as boarding up windows after a hurricane or clearing downed trees.

Evacuating your home or "Bugging Out"
You should also have a BOB or Bug Out Bag for every member of your family in
case you have no option but to leave your home. Your BOB should contain food,
water and clothing for three days to a week. You should have some means to
purify any water you find. You should have basic cooking
gear, sleeping gear, personal hygiene and first aid supplies, basic camping
tools, shelter and some means to listen to the news. Don't forget basic
identification and proof of where you live and copies of any other important
papers. Your BOB should be packed and ready to go at all times.

When the need or order to evacuate
comes the first thing you should do is get in contact with all of your family
members. Next put your bug out bags in your vehicle; if there is time, load up
with all the extra food, water, clothing and other gear you can safely fit into
your vehicle. Getting your bug out bags loaded into your vehicle should take no
more than five minutes if everyone does it at once. Keeping a few plastic
storage totes and a luggage cart can aid in moving other items like cans from
your cupboards and pantry and any stored water you have. A few five gallon water
jugs can be quickly filled then loaded. From the time you are notified or decide
to evacuate should take no more than 30 minutes in an ideal situation.

If you have the money and the room,
you may want to consider getting a small trailer to tow behind your vehicle.
Generally your vehicle can tow more than it can carry. If you have a small
trailer you can keep most of your gear stored in the trailer with the exception
of any temperature sensitive items like canned or perishable food, freeze dried
food is generally fine in a trailer. With a trailer all you have to do is hook
it up, load your bug out bags and any extra food or gear and leave.

You should have a plan in place in
the event leaving your home is required. This should include meeting places, a
number of destinations depending on how long you expect to be away and several
routes out of the area you live in and to your destination. If at all possible
do not take interstate or large highways, these will quickly become packed with
cars as people leave. Use back roads and round about routes if you have to, have
alternate routes marked to get around any bottlenecks along your route. The
sooner you leave the less traffic you will encounter and the less time it will
take you.

MONEY, ETC
- roll of quarters
- pre-paid long distance phone card
- Cash, as much as possible in 1s, 5s, 10s & 20s
(minimum $200)
- Keep in mind bribes and other "tolls" or "taxes" that
may suddenly appear

The minimum amount you will need is the number of
gallons of gas it takes to get to your
destination times $5 (to account for price gouging),
plus meals and snacks along the way and
hotels based on one room for every 12 hours of travel
time plus one more just in case.

The issue of gold and silver always comes up in
discussions of survival. Some people say it is
useless since you can eat or shoot it, others say it is
a requirement. I have always taken the
middle road when it comes to gold and silver. My
thought is that gold and silver should have value
based on 6000 years of human history. I never advocate
putting all of your eggs in any one basket
and don't do that when it comes to gold and silver. If
you can afford to put money aside for gold
and silver then do so, but remember like any other
insurance policy you may never need it and
like the stock market it may lose value.

When you buy gold or silver buy coins or bars that are
priced based on their weight and purity, get
as close to 100% content as possible. Many gold dealers
will try to talk you into collectors coins,
personally I would suggest staying away from collector
as much of their value is based upon their
rarity or condition or some other arbitrary method that
will fluctuate with time much more so than
regular bullion or content and weight priced coins.
Looked at another way, if Steve buys a one
ounce 100% pure bullion coin for $600 and Bob buys a
once ounce 100% pure collector coin for
$1000 and I am selling a cow for one ounce of 100% pure
gold both coins are worth exactly the
same to me... one cow. I don't care what Steve or Bob
paid for their coins, all I care about is
purity and weight. This means that Steve would be
paying me $600 and Bob would be paying me
$1000 for the same cow.

In other words, it is weight and purity that is likely
to matter to the average person in the end. Get
a variety of gold and silver coins in a variety of
weights, but get as close to 100% pure as you can.

THE BUG OUT BAG ITSELF

Your BOB should be made of sturdy material. It can be a backpack, duffel bag or
a plastic tote. I would suggest a backpack so that it is easy to carry if you
are forced to walk for any distance. Older ALICE backpacks allow you to add
pouches, canteen covers, etc and are fairly inexpensive.

Summary

Many of the items on this list are probably already in your home or garage.
Others will have to be bought, but with the exception of the water purifiers,
all are fairly cheap. Some of the items do not need to be duplicated for each
member of your family, so that will help keep costs down.

Most of these items are common sense
items that you will see in any hiker's backpack and should not raise any
questions from local law enforcement types. Many of these items are already on
the lists of the many government agencies that suggest you prepare for possible
emergencies. Printing out a copy of these lists and keeping them in your BOB may
be resolve any lingering questions from law enforcement types.

I have not dealt with guns
since that is a personal choice and local laws and other factors can have an
impact on your ability to own or carry a firearm. There are many articles and
opinions on which one or two firearms someone should have in a survival
situation, most people agree that a .22 rifle is a good item to have for small
game while a 12 gauge pump action shotgun is the best all around defensive
firearm out there. Beyond that the divisions and opinions can differ greatly.

I take a concentric or layered
approach to survival kits. I have my basic survival kit, various vehicle kits,
my BOB and other gear that comes into play depending on whether I am "Bugging
In" or "Bugging Out". If I have to Bug Out then I can quickly load my survival
kit, BOB, basic supply of food and some extra gear within 30 minutes. If I have
help or have longer to load my gear I can grab extra clothes and more gear. I
keep most of my gear in a 4 foot X 6 foot X 20 inch cabinet in my office. Fuel,
two 18 gallon totes full of food and other items are kept grouped together in
other areas of the house or in the garage.

When making your plans and packing
your gear and supplies keep your pets in mind. They will need water and food as
well as a safe place to be in your vehicle.

Your BOB should remain in a closet
near the door you will use to exit your house or in your room. If kept in your
room it is there for any last minute packing of clothes like extra socks and
underwear, another sweater or your seasonal gear.

You'll notice that I put some
leisure time items under first aid and medical with the notation of "Sanity"
beside them, this is to keep the kids and yourself occupied when you have long
periods of time to wait around, this could be keeping the kids relaxed while you
are driving or once everyone has reached their final destination.

Hosted by SurvivalistsSite.com
If you are interested in having your own emergency preparedness, survival or homesteading related Blog or Community Pages hosted for FREE by SurvivalistsSite.com click
here for more information.